She was the only child of Henry and Mary Catherine Sharp Purdy, descended on her father's side from Capt.

Purdy, of the British army, who was killed in the Battle of White Plains, and a member of whose family was among the early settlers of Westchester County, New York.

[4] On October 7, 1862, she married Dr. William H. Palmer, Surgeon of the Third New York Cavalry, and accompanied him to the seat of the civil war, there continuing her literary work, during the four years which ensued, by short stories and poems for Harper's periodicals and The Galaxy, and letters to various newspapers from North Carolina and Virginia.

[8] She was appointed factory inspector of Rhode Island in 1895, and served in that capacity three years, while her interests were greatly centered on the compulsory education law for children under 14.

She was one of the managers of the Providence Free Kindergarten Association, and served as secretary of a society organized to secure for women the educational privileges of Brown University.

[8] She was the author of a volume of short stories, A Dead Level and Other Episodes (Buffalo, 1892),[8] as well as A List of Rhode Island Literary Women (1893); California and Other Sonnets (1909); Dates and Days in Europe By an American resident in London (1915); and Outpost Message by Fanny Purdy Palmer With a Biographical Sketch by Her Daughter (1924, with Henrietta R. Palmer).